


Fio, Fieri, Factus

by oneshycrow



Series: Bringer of Light [2]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Female Character of Color, Gen, Mental Anguish, One-Sided Relationship, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Suicidal Thoughts, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, general Legion members
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-03
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-10 09:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3284621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneshycrow/pseuds/oneshycrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>F!Courier disguises herself as a man to infiltrate the Legion and has to go against everything she believes in for the greater good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When the Decanus she serves under kicks a slave woman to her knees against the rocky earth, Luca has to hold herself back from lashing out. The ground is hard and smoldering hot and the woman's knees are already skinned and raw. Luca winces, but forces herself to watch, forces a sick grin to spread across her cracked lips because she has an act to play and she intends - no.. needs - to play it well.

The woman looks back at her with glazed over eyes filled with death. Dead hopes, dead dreams, dead everything, because even if the Legion were to be defeated and the woman was set free, she wouldn't ever be the same again. Luca knows this all too well. 

Her grin disappears immediately, her lower lip splitting as it uncurls as if punishing her for grinning at such a sight in the first place, and she wanders off to find some place to sit down because the Brahmin steak she had for dinner suddenly doesn't sit right in her stomach.

\- - - 

Training is beyond difficult , and Luca has to thank her tribal blood for making her hardier than most other wastelanders. She absorbs every detail of the Legion fighting style, finding it sloppy at best. Perhaps that's just her trying to regain some of her pride. She hates relying on these sick fucks, but a part of her is beginning to appreciate what she's learned. Is that.. wrong? She doesn't know. Lately, the line between right and wrong has become blurred.

Luca may not be the best with words or computers, but fighting she could do. It's mildly comforting holding a spear. She relishes in the fact that, if she really wanted to - and oh, did she want to -, she could take her spear and shove it between the ribs of these sick men. Watch their blood, crimson as their clothes and their precious bull flag, drip to dust. She remembers a passage from a book a Follower had once read to her when she was a child, _"By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return."_ She thought it was fitting. She would speed up the process. Return all of these men back to the ground.

She wasn't always a violent person, but the thought of Legion blood splattering and oozing and running like a rancid river down these cursed hills makes her heart race and her pupils grow large. 

She shakes the thoughts away, whether through her own self-control or her newly founded obedience, and her grip tightens on the worn wood in her hand. She lunges at the makeshift manikin in front of her with all of the pent up anger stored away in her burning muscles.

\- - - 

Her chest aches and her lungs burn with every wheezing breath Luca takes. She feels dizzy often and every movement sends a sharp, staggering pain through her rib cage. Her bones and lungs would be damaged if she didn't take the tight bandages wound around her chest off soon.

She knows that.

She does not dare. 

One slip up could ruin her secret. All of her time at the Fort would be for nothing, and she knows the pain she's feeling now is nothing compared to rape. To crucifixion. 

To failure.

\- - - 

She sleeps deep in her tent, her nights dreamless. She's thankful for one thing, that she gets to sleep under the stars. She cannot handle closed spaces, and the walls surrounding the Fort are confinement enough. The air smells of men and dogs and putrid flesh. Luca longs for her home, her tribe, her cot with the Followers. Anything but this foul place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the Bible passage referenced is Genesis 3:19


	2. Chapter 2

Luca wakes to the sound of steady drums every morning - beating hard and passionate under the milky dawn sky. These men truly believe in their cause. The drums force her heartbeat and her every movement to match their tempo. She steps and breathes with the beat. She is certain her blood pumps along with them. Every day she becomes more and more Legion. Her body, her movements, her speech. All Legion. Everything but her mind, but how long before that, too, turns?  
These men truly believe in their cause. In their god. Pity, hatred, envy. These are all things that she feels.  
Her emotions are tumultuous. As deep and dark as the Colorado she crossed. She's changing.  
She's scared.

\- - -

She tries to count the days in her head. As the sun makes its laps over the horizon she tracks it. _One, two, three... forty, forty-one..._ Her numbers of days are jumbled with the number of strikes she lands on her fellow Legionnaires during training. The number of steps she takes along the bone dry, bone littered ground. The number of lashes the slave women get. The number of baby girls tossed to the wolves. The number of bruises that mar her dark skin. The number of times she has almost been found out. The number of things she regrets. The number of people she misses. The number, the number, the number, the number... _One, two, three... twenty-five, twenty-six... seventeen, eighteen, nineteen... one, two, three..._  
How many days has it been?

\- - - 

Luca watches the young ones with avid interest in her downtime. They giggle and chase each other with sticks. Playing god and profligate and throwing around words and phrases she's certain they don't even know the meaning to yet. Their faces are innocent and sweet, chubby and round with left over baby fat. Their eyes are big and bright and shine with purpose and youth. They look just like the children in Freeside. She witnesses humanity she never wished to see here. These children are just children, not monsters. Yet. They don't deserve what she thinks of them.  
The one with the gold around his neck is the son of Lucius. Dark hair and big brown eyes.

Ícaro is his name. Icarus. Spanish roots, maybe? Her heart tugs at that. He will never know of his roots. He is Legion, through and through. His mother will never tell him the old Mexican folktales that Luca grew up with. He will never be called _hijo_ or _chiquito._ Ícaro doesn't know his mother. Would not even flinch if he saw her malnourished, naked body on a cross. Would he even if he knew her?  
Luca looks up. There are birds circling in the deep blue. Always circling. The Fort is death incarnated. There will be one more death tonight.

\- - - 

The next morning is dark and grey. The air is heavy with thick fog that drifts down from the mountains and up from the river. It is hot enough that Luca dares to take her helmet off. She gulps the stuffy air, thankful for the deep smell of vapor water. It seems to purify the normal smell of rot. Her dry throat is soothed for the first time in what may or may not be months. The bruises on her neck are visible - finger prints that pressed deep into her trachea. Her voice is deeper now for a reason. Almost killing herself every night is what has kept her alive. Her hair is short and her jaw sharp. Her eyes keen and cold grey.

A Decanus is being punished today. Her Decanus.  
A boy with dark hair and big brown eyes was found dead in his tent. Beaten and stabbed and strung up to bleed over dust. His knife was found lodged in the boy's eye socket. The gold around his neck hung out of his torn and bloodied tunic. A sun. Ícaro flew too close. Blood turned the gold red. Tarnished the smooth metal. Didn't his father know the story? One boy returned to the ground.  
The Decanus is lashed to death in front of the recruits he trained. His pleas are heard, but not listened to. The evidence is obvious enough. _A priori._ Lucius is angry. The recruits are scared.  
Some gasp and look away. They are lucky enough to be rewarded a quick death. Luca looks on, her eyes hard and her face stone cold. Her jaw is clenched to keep back her smile. The lights dance bright in her eyes. She hopes no one can see. She'd seen this man rape and beat countless women. He was no friend or mentor to her.  
Her expression is seen as that of strength, not hatred. She is not fazed by the death of her master. She is promoted to Decanus that day, and the Latin that flies forth from her lips in response to the praise sounds almost natural. Her mouth tastes of acrid iron. She wants to swallow that language whole. Foul.

\- - - 

She lays in her new tent later that night. The mess has been cleaned. Between her fingers is a gold sun. Ícaro. From her lips comes a phrase she learned from an old book.  
"Alea jacta est."  
 _The die is cast._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a priori - from the former. If you think something a priori, you are conceiving it before seeing the facts. Presupposing. (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/latin-words-and-expressions-all-you-need-to-know/)  
> Ícaro - Spanish form of Icarus  
> hijo - son  
> chiquito - little boy


	3. Chapter 3

The new rank of Decanus brings Luca many privileges. She will now have a name, a title to which she will be known if she makes it further. She is rather young for a Decanus, so the privilege of scouting and training her own recruits will come a bit later. For now, she is content to be able sleep in her own tent and have fresher foods. 

She has mixed feelings about her promotion, anyway. She hates the confinement and stale smell of the Fort, but at least here she wasn't hurting anyone. How would she feel when faced with the Mojave at her fingertips? How could she put a blade to the throats of the people she was trying desperately to protect? When she first entered the Fort, she had been scared of the walls. She had not wanted to enter those metal gates. Now she never wanted to leave.

\- - - 

The day after her promotion the chaos of the tragedy that had befallen Lucius was more or less dissipated. The loss of a healthy boy was always mourned, but there were more slaves and more children to be had. Death was a part of the wastes, and the anger that Caesar allowed was merely for show. She was certain he knew that some men could be ruled by fear and fear only. Not everyone in this Fort was loyal.

That afternoon Luca is shown to her new master, a Centurion known as Aurelius of Phoenix. He is brash and arrogant; too prideful for Luca's tastes. He wears his own trophies, his armor flashy and profoundly ornate and made of scavenged pieces from fallen NCR soldiers and far away tribals. He holds himself as if he were truly accomplished - as if the rank of Centurion really meant something in the grand scheme of things. It doesn't, and Luca is certain she will enjoy taking his place. She will use his feathered helmet as a stepping stool to reach her next goal.

The shine of his armor blinds him.

He speaks like a profligate - his speech is that of a Freeside whore. Not the words, no. He is a well-trained dog, but the lilt, the way his voice dips over and stumbles upon his pronunciation of their tongue, which is what gives him away. She is practiced in picking out the disloyal, the dishonest. A snake is only a snake, no matter the exuberance of his scales. Luca is no longer a recruit nor is she a woman. She is this man's equal, his superior. He says something to her and she hears only sound and does not answer. She looks him in the eye and rises to her full height because she remembers that she can without a lashing. His irises are blue and tinged with rusty copper - the whites more yellowish than they should be. Liver cancer. Alcoholics in Freeside looked just like this man. This profligate.

This dissolute.

He speaks again, his voice firmer this time, and Luca is snapped from her thoughts. She licks her dry lips, reminding herself to be less ambitious, less sure. One slip and she could be sent over the edge to the wolves and the bones of those baby girls. 

"Decanus. Your name. You will speak when I ask." His voice isn't fierce, though she can tell he is trying. He probably thinks he's scary - the poor thing. She feels nothing toward his desperate display of power. 

" _Nullus_. I have no name." Luca speaks clearly, the tribal tilt and sway of her words gone and replaced with cold and crisp Latin enunciation. The Centurion snorts at her answer like a pig, seemingly amused when there is clearly nothing to be amused by. He thinks her a simpleton. She thinks him a fool playing god.

She will gut him like the pig he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nullus - none


	4. Chapter 4

"No name?" Aurelius continues, his narrowed eyes - almost cat-like if it weren't for the ignorant dullness they contained - focused on hers. "Typical for a past savage." He spits out the word as if it were poison or bitter drink and Luca stays silent. She ponders what the word savage can possibly mean to a man like him.

"You cannot be called recruit forever..." He is silent for a moment, thinking.

"Sileo." He says finally, a satisfied smirk on his face. Luca's eyes can't help but narrow behind her new helmet and visor. Again, she says nothing.

"It means mute, silent - in case you didn't know. I don't expect you to. You will now go by that name." His chin is tilted up and he is looking down at her like a piece of meat; daring her to react in a negative way or in any way at all. He wants to know what her buttons are. She suspects that's how he controls all of his troops. She is silent.

"Answer when I speak. Run when I call. Act on my command. There is no free will here. You were not trained to have opinions. This cove may be under Legion rule, but it is under my command." His eyes bore into hers. Sileo. Silent. Mute. Unnoticed. With silence comes anonymity. She will shed her old name like snake skin. Luca. Bringer of light. Light wouldn't help her now. Not here.

"Yes, sir." She answers and he nods, seemingly satisfied with her easy submission.

She's thankful for the new name. Now she has something to attach to this side of her. Luca was never in the Legion. She was merely a tribal and later on a courier who failed. She'd failed at many things and she might as well have died back in that grave in Goodsprings. Covered in ancient dust and ancient memories - Luca is no more. She had never seen the bloodshed and crucifixions and the brands on women's chests. That is all silent. Sileo. This is Sileo.

Luca can rest.

\- - - 

She is sent to find her new mentor, Decanus Severus, in the heat of the afternoon. Patrols are coming down the long stretch of hill into the cove and fresher ones are arriving on boats to be sent out into the Mojave. Anyone who leaves is eager. Anyone who enters is covered in blood - most likely not their's. There is now cracked, molten asphalt beneath her feet as well as crumbling dust and well-trodden dirt. The wind whips harder down here where there are no walls or metal gates to keep it out. Luca - no, Sileo - is thankful for that. She missed the sounds of wind and water lapping against rock and shore. There are high, treacherous rocky outcrops surrounding the camp that are almost cartoonishly steep and a long, shining stretch of water that blurs off into the horizon on the side that isn't surrounded.

Her new shaded goggles dims her surroundings and she feels as if she's watching the world from inside of herself. As if she wasn't actually standing there; awestruck and looking at the scene in front of her. She almost wishes that were true.

She cannot swim that river or climb those outcrops. If she fails here then there is nowhere to run. Though there was nowhere to run in the Fort she likes to think she would have made it if she dared to try. This rock and water can mean death to her, but the clean and slightly salty aquatic smell of the breeze blowing in across the river is refreshing and uplifting after the stale stench of the Fort. The cove is dusty and smells of worn, drenched wood and hot sun beating down on ancient concrete and layers and layers and layers of dirt.

This is her new home, and she tries to find the good in it. Or, maybe, just the decent. Only the decent.

\- - - 

Decanus Severus is crouched by a fire on the far end of Cottonwood Cove when Sileo arrives. He's barking orders at some younger recruits, their faces still white and slightly clean and free of the dark tan that most Legionaries carried on their skin. They fumble with various wraps and powders, crushing and mixing along with his stern instruction as he roasts hunks of meat for their afternoon meal. Sileo announces her presence with an _Ave_ and he stands, dusts off his hands on his crimson tunic, and turns to her. He is much taller than her, like Aurelius, and dark-skinned. His presence is less suffocating than their Centurion's, and she has no current reason to harbor hatred for this man other than the fact that he is Legion.

"You must be the new Decanus. _Saluto._ What is your name?" He crosses his arms and stares down at her. She almost fumbles. His voice sounds familiar. Her heart tugs. There is something about this man that she knows, and that only serves to disturb her.

"Sileo." The word tastes right on her tongue, slides off the tip and flicks out as if it were meant to be hers. Severus nods and motions to the group of recruits behind him. They continue their work that they had set down to watch her as soon as his gaze lands on them, their nervousness apparent as one spills the powder into the dust. She can't hold back her smirk at that and Severus kicks dirt at him.

"Watch your hands, boy!" He shouts and the recruit utters a shaky apology before going back to work. Sileo is surprised that was the only punishment he got.

"This is our _contubernium _. You will take over once you learn how - if you are capable... though I'm sure it won't be too difficult. They are fools, but when we are through with them they will be as fine a Legionary as you and I." The men – boys; she isn't sure what to call them yet - behind Severus beam at that. They have just been called fools, but even the slightest glimmer of recognition gives them pride. Sileo nods and Severus continues.  
__

"I must admit, I am impressed. Normally recruits as young as yourself must be in the Legion for a few years before they reach any rank - even one as low as ours. You reached it in mere months." There was genuine respect in his voice and she was surprised - mostly due to the fact that she now knew she had indeed been at the Fort for months. How much of the wastes had changed in that time? How much of herself?

"I heard a lot of your fellow recruits didn't make it. It's said that you can rip a man's throat out with your bare hands. There are many rumors that run through our Legion, but most are true. I trust you will live up to my expectations?" He asked, watching her for an answer. She swallows. The recruits watch their exchange with a mixture of fear and awe written on their faces. So her presence has been noticed. Sweat beads on her forehead and runs down her face, leaving clean trails of copper skin through the dust covering her cheeks. She is thankful, once again, for her helmet.

"I will." She replies. Was being noticed good or bad? She supposes she'll find out. Severus lets out a hearty laugh and slaps her on the back, pushing her forward toward her new group and new life.

" _Eximus_ , Decanus Sileo, I look forward to working with you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ave/saluto - greetings  
> contubernium - The contubernium was the smallest organized unit of soldiers in the Roman Army and was composed of eight legionaries, the equivalent of a modern squad. The men within the contubernium were known as contubernales. (wikipedia's definition)  
> eximus - excellent


	5. Chapter 5

Luca's first day - no Sileo. She is Sileo now. She must remember. Sileo's first day back out in the Mojave is a mixture of freedom, fear, and adrenaline. She, Severus, and their _contubernium_ are stationed a few miles down the river in NCR territory scouting and gathering basic intel as a sort of training mission. She's certain they aren't doing anything important- the laxness of their pace and the giddiness of the recruits proves that to her.

Severus allows the new recruits to survey the area at their own pace, offering a few words of guidance and teaching them about the terrain. Sileo had forgotten that they have never left the safety of the Fort before now. They were not born of the Mojave's heat and sand as she was. They are Legion in blood; taught from birth that they are higher in rank than the average wastelander.

She thinks that with a hint of envy that bubbles up within her stomach and settles in her chest so suddenly she's almost caught by surprise. If only she were born a man. If only her morals were built and bred within her as theirs were. If only, if only, if only.

If only she had never set foot in this wretched desert. If only she had never been born.

\- - -

The familiarity of Severus's voice continues to disturb her as time goes on. He hasn't taken off his helmet yet in her presence, nor has she taken off hers. His voice sounds like old nights spent under slopes of red rock on beds of dried moss. Like playful splashes in a clear stream or misty days of cleansing rain. Life fresh roasted gecko meat passed around a family fire, delicious and burning her tongue in her haste. The feel of her mother's soft lips pressing against her forehead, sweat slicked from hot days spent playing in the sun. Her mother kissed another forehead along with hers. Sileo had a brother once - years younger than her and the kindest person she'd ever known. What had become of them?

She knows. She knows and she denies and denies and denies. It isn't real. It never happened. But then, why would she be here?

She snaps out of her thoughts suddenly and finds herself sitting at a campfire with her family and - no, with the Legion. There's a slab of gecko meat on a dented metal plate in front of her and she finds that she is already chewing a piece of the tough meat. She cannot remember the setting sun or the rising smoke of the campfire, and was not aware of cutting off the piece of steak that was now in her mouth. Her movements are slow, deliberate, as she chews and sucks in small breaths through her nose to taste every hint of meaty, smoky flavor.

She takes in her surroundings again, finding Severus sitting right across from her. The flames lick at his black helmet, the heat blurring his edges until he is nothing more than a shimmering shape in front of her. The night is silent save for the quiet murmur of water lapping against the broken down docks a few feet down the hill they are camped on. She needs to be more awake. It won't do for her to lose herself in thoughts of the past and inane ramblings that don't even make much sense to her anymore.

The NCR are right over the hill. The New California Republic with their two-headed bear and their beige and berets. Bear, beige, beret. Sileo repeats these words within her head for no reason. Bull, beast, blood. Why does everything sound and seem so abstract to her now? If she really wanted to she could walk right over a few hills and into and NCR camp. She'd be shot on sight. She thinks a lot of death nowadays.

\- - - 

Sileo pulls her sleeping roll outside of the tent that night and lies under the stars. She's slowly testing the boundaries of her place in the Legion and she realizes her privileges aren't as fragile as she thought they were. Whether she slept under tent or sky, Caesar didn't care. He couldn't even see. He would never know - he didn't even know of her. This thought was something strange. His eyes were not his own, but the eyes of scouts. How many of his laws and beliefs were truly his, then? Who was he? Sileo's mind is wandering again and she knows it, but is there really a point in catching it and reigning it in?

Right, yes there is. Her mission. _Mission_... the word makes it seem so important. As if she had been sent to do this. As if she hadn't cut her hair and bound her chest of her own free will. As if she were forced by some contract or promise of a reward for hopping the boat and riding to the incarnation of all her nightmares.

Sileo comes back to reality again and she is crouched by the river, the depths dark and the waves calming. She looks back and sees the glow of the fire over the hill and her own skid marks in the sand where she had slipped coming down the shore to where she now rests on the balls of her feet. How easy it would be to shed her armor and binding right now and walk away and never come back. To be a woman again, free and away from this place. To drown herself in the murky depths of the clear, cool water.

What was she doing here? What did she plan to do? Reach the high ranks of the Legion and then what? Kill Caesar? That wouldn't be the end of his Legion. There would be no end. And if she did happen to end the Legion, then what? Something else would take its place. There was always something else.

A war, a bomb - scratch that, _many_ bombs, - a fire, a sickness, a poison, a passage of time, an idea, an allegiance, a reference, a wrong turn, _a torch taken too literally_ , and then death, death, death. There will always be something else.

Sileo's father died when they were young. A hunt gone wrong and a laceration on his leg was all it took. It was infected, his leg turned to a congealed mess of rancid, dripping flesh and he had died slowly. He had turned so disgusting and pitiful that Sileo had refused to see him in his last days of death. She was young and couldn't bear to see such a thing, no matter how he begged for her to come to him.

After his passing, she had spent more time worrying about her brother's grief than she had actually feeling sorrow for her father's death. Sileo felt too much for others and not enough for herself. She fights too much for others. She does too much for everyone else.

She wants to save all of these slaves and relieve the Mojave of the burden of the bull. Should she stop? Should she accept it? Should the slaves have fought more on their own? Killed themselves? Is it their fault for being captured, or hers for not being around to stop it from happening? Should she pity them or hate them? Should she believe that the NCR will lead the Mojave to freedom? Should she believe that the Legion is what the Mojave needs? Should she, should she, should she...

"Thinking of deserting?" Says a voice from behind her and once again she snaps from her thoughts, reeling forward and wetting her arms and knees in the water as she catches herself against the smooth pebbles and sand. Fat droplets hit against her bare skin and roll down her reddened, raw lips. She has taken to chewing them in her constant nervousness. The water is cool and almost sweet when she runs her tongue along the drops, the faint taste of iron still present on her stinging mouth. When had she taken her helmet off?

"I cannot swim." She says simply, as if he should know. Severus. Perhaps he should? He just hums and walks up to stand beside her. She dares a glance up and sees that his helmet is still on, but his armor is stripped off, leaving him only in his cotton tunic and leather-stripped kilt - as she is also dressed. He is looking out at the water, his arms crossed behind him and his posture relaxed. The water laps cold and crisp against her forearms and runs in beads down her face. She breathes in the cool, salty air and feels it press against her flushed cheeks and she misses the way the wind used to curl and whip through her long, thick hair.

"I can teach you. It's a useful skill." He says kindly and she narrows her eyes, but remembers that he could see her face if he decides to look down. She wipes it clean immediately, wanting to plunge her head in the water despite her fears. "Caesar won't like a Praetorian who cannot swim." His voice is teasing, almost gently playful. Is he being amicable with her? It's disturbing, the casual tone in which the legionnaires could speak to one another sometimes. Sileo doesn't like remembering that they are people, too. He is aware of her intentions to rank up - as they are possibly the intentions of every Legionnaire in the camp. He will never know the full extent of her plans, nor the consequences that they shall bring.

Sileo's thoughts, again, had wandered and whens he looks back up Severus's helmet is off and tossed to the side and he is wading into the silken water. He stops, hip deep, and looks back at her with an amused grin and her heart stops when she sees his face, illuminated by the moonlight reflecting ripples of the river. She remembers one, so much younger but very much the same, looking up at her as she shared some sweet berries she'd found on a lucky foraging trip. They were juicy and she'd watched with laughter glittering in her eyes as he made a sticky, purple-stained mess of himself when he ate them. They were his favorite. She remembers days spent in the sun with him, a warm smile always on his face as they played under the watchful eye of their mother. Not watchful enough.

 _Kelile._ Her brother.

There is no spark of recognition in his eyes when she stands and he can see her face fully. There is a slight narrowing of his eyes; perhaps he remembers a shadow of his former life. A flash of her face in his mind before it is gone again; buried under years and years spent proclaiming _true to Caesar._

He was so young when it happened... how could he ever remember her? Kelile... Severus, for he would never remember his name or even his native tongue, continues out into the river a bit further. Sileo cannot stand the emotion rushing within her and she desperately follows him, jogging quickly over to the dock as he feet scuff and crunch against the stony sand.

Sileo curses loudly, feeling a bit childish as she just about loses her footing on the creaky woody of the dock and stumbles. She just barely stops, teetering at the edge as she looks down at him in the water. Her Kelile. Her sweet little brother with the round cheeks and sparkling eyes that she'd dreamed about and cried over so many times since he'd left her. He cocks his head to the side the exact same way he always did as he laughs at her outburst and her heart throbs again. He is a monster with a devilish grin and hands strong and skilled enough to choke the life out of a woman or hunt down an enemy. There are strings holding his limbs and a hole in his back where Caesar can place his hand to make this man act in any way he damn pleases.

Still, it is him. She doesn't know whether to be overjoyed or terrified because Kelile is alive and in the flesh right in front of her and he deserves to die.

Their lives together were stolen and he cannot even remember the stormy nights when he'd crawl into her bed with her and she'd fabricate tales of riches and adventure for him until he finally found sleep.

Her resolve strengthens again as she watches Severus swim below her through the silver water without a care in the world. She sits and pulls off her boots, letting her legs dangle off the dock. She would have done anything to protect him and keep him by her side. She would give anything to tell him who she really is, to desperately try to jog his memory and bring the sweet boy she used to know back to her. He was once her most precious thing in the world.

She will find a way to destroy the Legion, even if everything else is taken from her in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'an allegiance' - the allegiance between Caesar and Joshua Graham  
> 'a reference' - Caesar's reference of ancient Rome  
> 'a torch taken too literally' - Caesar tells that the Follower's of the Apocalypse have the motto, 'bring the torch of knowledge to the wastes' and that he "may have taken the torch part a bit too literally."


	6. Chapter 6

The days following her first excursion into the wastes with Severus and their troops are filled with sweltering heat and salt-slicked skin. Sileo’s mind is sharp, the cloudiness of her doubts and fears pushed away for the time being with the unveiling of Severus’s relation to her past. She has no time for wallowing in self-hatred or pity, she knows that now. She is knee deep in the thick swamp of her plans and no amount of wishing could pull her back out. It was either fight on and fail, or give up and die. Her mother never taught her to give up. Two shots to the head never taught her to die.

\- - -

On the fourth day, Sileo notices something she hadn’t before on her way up the steep road leading out of Cottonwood Cove. The sharp tang of radiation is a bit stronger when she turns her head to the left and opens her mouth to taste the air blowing her way. Perched precariously on the cliff high above the camp are a rusted truck and a few dilapidated cabins. She makes a mental note to check it out some time later when Severus comes up to her, his gaze fixed to where her eyes rest on the cliff.

“Noticed the truck?” He asks casually, motioning for their troops to continue up the path. Sileo nods slowly, peeling her gaze away from the cliffs to glance at Severus. Even with his helmet on it hurts her to know the face behind it. Every moment she spends with him makes her more determined to ruin the Legion.

“My advice is; don’t go near it. We can’t seem to figure out what’s inside, but whatever it is makes the troops sick if they investigate it for too long. Aurelius wouldn’t like it if you snooped around there anyway. Something tells me he’s scared of it.” Severus lets out a joking scoff – something he only did around Sileo and a few other Legionnaires. She managed to get on his good side somehow. Maybe there was still a part of him that knew her.

“Advice taken, then…” She mumbles, turning away and starting back up the hill. Today is the day she can finally train her own troops as a Decanus. She’ll figure out the truck later. Somehow, she feels that whatever is inside will be very important in the days to come.

\- - - 

Sileo has a hard time grasping her role as Decanus. She was never fond of being a team player – even when she managed to befriend people out in the Mojave. It was always hard for her to vocalize what she wanted from them. She has these same struggles with her troops and is constantly relying on Severus to assist her. Her orders are either made so abruptly that they were foolish and unclear or she is unable to make them at all. She had been drilled on Legion tactics and fighting and scouting ever since she’d joined – and god knows how many months it had been. Even then, she couldn’t instruct the others. By the end of the day she felt ready to snap from the pent up anger within her.

\- - - 

She storms off later that night, stinging tears in her eyes and her machete heavy in her hand. She needs to breathe. She wants to leave. This was a problem she had faced many times before. The NCR had promoted her much too quickly. Mr. House wanted her to lead an army. Benny wanted her to be queen of New Vegas. Even all of her friends had wanted her to lead them in some way. She was not cut out for leading, yet her whole life depended on it. Not just hers, but everyone’s.

How could she lead others when she could just barely lead herself?

She throws her helmet to the ground when she is so far from camp that the fire is a speck of orange on her left and the lights of New Vegas shimmer far off on her right. She runs her hands through her sweat-dampened hair, wanting to grab and pull and rip it from her scalp. She scrapes her hands along her arms next, barely feeling the dull scratch of her nails against the tanned flesh. She is numb and she hates it. She is stupid and she loathes it. She cannot save anyone but herself and she wants to die. She takes the machete and wonders how it would feel lodged between her ribcage, but scoffs at the idea.

She took two bullets to the brain and a shovelful of dirt to the mouth. What makes her think a machete would kill her?

She slices instead at the air, practicing movements she’d learned months earlier as naturally as if she had grown up Legion herself. She could barely remember who she had been before this. She didn’t even know who she was now… and how could she even begin to imagine what she would become? She swings her blade until her lungs burn and her arm shakes before collapsing to a heap on the crackled earth. She is but a shadow in the vastness of the Mojave, her silhouette shaking as she lets out dry, tearless sobs. She is but a shadow, but her every action determines the fate of every living thing in this death-ridden desert.

\- - - 

By the time she drudges back to camp, exhausted and empty inside, the slow haze of dawn is rising over the mountains to the east. The sky is milky grey and pink, reflecting on Sileo’s light eyes. Severus seems to be expecting her and the troops greet her with nothing more than blank, suspicious stares as they eat their morning meal. She drops her helmet, the visor splitting from the crack created earlier as it hits against the rock and shatters into the dirt, and levels Severus with a hard stare. Her reputation within the Legion is sure to crumble if she continues to lose herself like this. Severus may act as her friend, but she is being watched and tested, even by those lower than her. Simple infiltration would get her nowhere. She must be quick and deadly.

Kelile and Luca are dead. Sileo and Severus are all that had risen from the ashes of their tribe and as she raises her chin and stalks up to her troops she sheds her past and a weight is lifted from her shoulders. Her arms sting from dirt and dried blood that is caked just the same under her blunt fingernails. Her machete is still gripped firmly in her fingers, the handle pressed warm and rough against her calloused palm. She takes a shuddering breath and lets it out slowly, gazing into each and every man’s eyes as she looks them over. She may be sickened by herself, but these men are far worse. She wasn’t even doing this for the Mojave anymore. She was doing it for herself.

“When the sun reaches the peak of that mountain we’re setting out.” She states simply, her jaw set firm as she waits for a reply. The recruits give her nothing, but begin to pack. Sileo turns to leave, catching Severus’s eye. He has a faint smile on his face, but his eyes are like slits. She holds his gaze until he looks away, her heart heavy but her intentions heavier.

As she walks away from the camp to stand guard she looks into the distance, her eyes focusing on the dimming lights of New Vegas. This is a familiar sight and one of her favorite. She sucks in a deep breath, feeling the warm desert air in her lungs and on her damp skin. She misses her friend.

Maybe she is doing this for the Mojave after all.


	7. Chapter 7

A plan is hatched a few days after Sileo’s most recent breakdown in the desert involving the mysterious truck and a single NCR soldier they had managed to capture. She was young and naïve and had wandered too far from the camp, and it had been remarkably – even laughably – easy to capture her. Sileo found herself feeling sick when a slight sense of pride bubbled up inside of her after they had her tied and on her knees in the dry desert dirt. 

She had led her contubernium into catching the soldier with a slighter feeling of ease than she had ever felt when leading a group of people. Severus remarked that she was finally getting it. She had to hold back the urge to puke. 

\- - -

The soldier is stripped and struggles when Sileo dresses her in the rags that the slaves wear. Sileo’s heart tugs, but she is glad she’s the one doing the job. The girl is lucky. She’s shoved in a cage with the other slaves at Cottonwood Cove – a small family with a young girl, a brother, a dim-witted mother, and an absent father.

It’s hard to watch as the others don’t even acknowledge the new slave, but rather turn their blank, blood-shot eyes to the opening in the gate before it shuts. One glimpse of freedom and it’s gone. Instead of salvation there is a soldier kneeling at their feet with tears in her eyes and dirt in her clenched fists. Seeing a member of the organization that is supposed to be saving you down on their knees and utterly defeated in front of you is never a good feeling. Sileo knew that from experience.  
She requests to take up the position of guarding the cage, saying that she is sick of walking through the desert all day and would rather keep the slaves in their place. This isn’t a normal request, but the recruit she speaks to knows better than to argue with a higher up and goes to find some other job. Severus doesn’t mind and Aurelius just plain doesn’t care. He’s too caught up in his own personal matters. Sileo has a good feeling that means hard liquor and a worn out whore. 

Her nights from then on consist of patrolling the fence as she looks out over the lake. The moon reflects on the ripples beautifully – the slaves truly did have one last wonderful view of the Mojave before their lives changed forever. 

Throughout the few weeks she's watching them, Sileo chats nonchalantly with the slaves – something she would be whipped for if she were to be found out, but then again, who was around to tell when everyone but her and she slaves were asleep? She dares not tell them her identity, instead allowing them to think whatever they wish of her. 

It’s hard when they speak of their old life as simple farmers and the relationships they used to have with people – some of whom she knew. She wonders if she’d ever seen these people before she shaved her head and changed her name. She wonders if she could have been there to save them.

It’s harder still when she realizes, after a long while of listening, that she has a hard time feeling empathy for these particular people. Beforehand, she felt that everyone – no matter how “weak” or “useless” they were – deserved empathy and kindness and a fair chance at life. Now, after all she’s been through, she thinks that these people are pathetic. She begins to view them as nothing more than meat. Meat droning on and on about how they were abandoned and how there’s only hope in the world. Sileo used to think a lot about hope. She now knows that there is no hope or fate in this world; just plain skill, palm-splitting work, and pure luck.

She thinks that maybe there are slaves and masters for a reason. Sheep and shepherds. The mouse and the cat. Sileo wants to tell these people that if they throw their hope on a pile of sticks, nothing would burn. Sileo wants them to fight back for once, to bare their teeth and spit at her. She wants the mother to scream with boiled over rage and fight tooth and claw for her daughter when she is taken to be “tried out” by the Recruits.

The daughter gets nothing but a blank stare and a wrinkled frown. The NCR soldier doesn’t even look up from where she is biting away at her fingers. The brother is sleeping his way through his sister’s shrieking. Sileo wants a reaction from them. Rage, sadness, fear, anything. Anything to prove to her that they deserve to be saved. She is given nothing. 

She wants to rip them to shreds.

\- - - 

The night is cold and dark when Sileo drags the NCR trooper from her pen, holding a knife to her throat and gripping her thin wrists tight as she pulls her along behind the tents on the lake shore. The time has come for her plan and if she ruins everything now, well, she didn’t even know if she cared anymore.

The girl makes no sound save for heavy breathing, she is gagged and blindfolded and Sileo is consistently whispering threats into her ear. It had taken a lot of effort for her to memorize the routine of the newest slave pen guard, and she had to time this perfectly.

This trooper’s feelings wouldn’t deter her from what she was going to do. What she had to do.

Sileo steps heavily through the shallow lake water, feeling a suffocating fear rise up through her gut and settling in her throat as the water rises higher and higher, passing her chest and resting at her collarbones. In order to get past the dogs, they must disguise their scent, and it takes every bit of patience she has in order to keep the trooper’s head above the freezing water. Every inch around them is black and thick as ink or blood. Sileo tries not to imagine what could be under her feet when she goes deep enough to lose the shore for a single moment. Panic almost overtakes her, and if it weren’t for the fact that she already felt dead she would have been scared for her life.

They’re both spluttering and shaky by the time they get far enough away from camp that they can climb out of the lake. Sileo takes a deep breath and wheezes, dropping the trooper without even a care for her safety as she falls to her knees and retches onto the shore. Her eyes burn and her throat is raw by the time she’s done and she wipes her mouth before standing, unsteadily, back on her feet. Water had always been one of her biggest fears.

Shuffling and grunting alerts Sileo to her captive trying in vain to wiggle her way away. It may have been amusing if it weren’t for the situation they were in and how fucking infuriating this girl, and the other slaves, had become for her. She blames the fact that she couldn’t save them for this annoyance. Or maybe the fact that, nowadays, she didn’t even want to. She moves before the girl can unknowingly worm her way off the cliff and send herself tumbling into the depths of the lake below. She can't afford to lose her yet.

She pounces, gripping the trooper’s wrists and tugging them harshly behind her back. She hears a snap – fucking great – and the girl’s left shoulder pops loose as she lets out a muffled scream. In the distance she hears a single dog bark and her heart almost stops. The knife is at her throat again and Sileo tugs her to her feet, her heart not even wrenching at the pathetic sound that leaves her lips.

“You’re going to do what I say, and you might just live.” Sileo spits between clenched teeth, continuing to drag the now limp girl up the steep cliffs to the truck. She kicks her once to get her feet moving, both of them stumbling ungracefully up the jagged edges of rock. The girl seems to be cooperating now – typical of a trooper. Their life before anyone else’s, no matter what their government says.

\- - - 

The girl is untied and her gag is removed when they reach the truck overlooking the entirety of Cottonwood Cove. Sileo stays low, yanking the girl down beside her, and removes her blindfold to show her the view. She keeps her grip tight on the back of her neck, her other hand on the handle of her machete at all times. Who knows what this girl is capable of in a truly desperate situation.

The sky isn’t as dark now and dawn is coming – Sileo surmises that it’s perhaps 4 in the morning, which leaves her just enough time to execute her plan perfectly. She had no room for failure.

She turns to the girl, who regards her in confusion, her eyes filled with anxiety and clouded distrust. 

“You’re going to do something for me.” Sileo begins, speaking gently to her as she takes off her helmet. She hopes the girl can see she’s a good person in her eyes – if there’s even anything left of that to see in her. 

The girl doesn’t respond, simply stares, her mouth agape as she takes in Sileo’s features. A man may not know a woman when he sees one, but there was something between two women that couldn’t be denied. There was a bond, maybe, especially in these desperate circumstances, which could never be broken. Sileo knew at once that this girl recognized her – maybe not as the courier or a fellow trooper, but certainly as a fellow woman.

“I’m going to open this truck.” She continues, her wrist buzzing at the thought of it as if she still had her pip-boy on. She could still feel the ghost weight of it sometimes, as if it were her own arm that she’d lost. She knows what’s in this truck and if she had still been wearing her pip-boy she’s certain her Geiger counter would be ticking off the charts. This has to be quick and efficient. She pulls away for a moment to fiddle with the lock of the door, gritting her teeth as she did her best – with the single bobby pin she had managed to scrounge and her own fingernail to turn the lock – to unlock the back door of the truck. She doesn’t dare open it, not yet.

“What are you doing? Who are you?” She girl asks, continuing to watch in confusion. Sileo turns back to her, a faint look of sorrow in her eyes as she picks up the rope she had used as a gag earlier. This girl is covered in bruises. No one would ever notice one more – if there was even anyone left to question it after this.

“I’m sorry.” Sileo murmurs, and in one fluid motion she’s behind the girl, pulling her up onto her feet as she wraps the rope tight around her neck. She holds it, her knuckles white as she pulls hard and squeezes her eyes shut, humming a tune to herself to drown out the noises of choking and spluttering. She pretends she’s helping someone pitch a tent, and when it pulls away she pulls back harder each time. In time, the resistance fades, and Sileo slowly opens her eyes to see the pale face of the trooper staring up at her – her eyes bugging from her head and her tongue lolled to the side.

Sileo swallows heavily and throws the body down near the door of the truck, stuffing the rope in her tunic and hoping to god it looks like this girl died from radiation. She opens the door then, the ancient metal creaking and rusty, and runs away before she can be hit by the barrage of barrels that come pouring out. She throws herself as far from the truck as she possibly can while remaining undetected, and finds a rock to lean against as she sees the havoc she released onto the Cove. 

She doesn’t know exactly how much radiation was in that truck, but in seconds the men who were in the open are writhing on the ground and even more have fallen completely still. The wave of radioactive heat that rises up from the canyon stifles the air and makes it hard to breathe. The stench of bubbling flesh and rotten waste is unbearable, and the sting that’s carried on the wind affects even the birds flying miles high in the lightening sky. 

Her brother was down there along with the other slaves. In the process of saving the Mojave and the citizens within it, Sileo has killed more people than she ever had in her life. Four of whom were completely innocent.

Her eyes are watering, and it’s not from the radiation.


	8. Chapter 8

“Luca!” A sound. A river flowing gentle upon sandy, canyon rocks.  
“Luca! ¡Levántate!” Smell. Fruit; plump and ripe on purple-stained fingers.  
“¡Hermanita!” Sight. Blazing sun and clear blue skies. Dust swirling and leaves floating on the mirror-bright water. Reflections in the shadows, blurred over with ripples. A beginning. The beginning.

_Home._

Luca awakens to the berry-stained face of her brother above her, his thick black hair spilling over his shoulders in bright, shiny new dreads; braided and twined with feathers and handmade clay beads. Her own hair looks the same.

She’s up with a jolt, looking at her hands in disbelief. They are not bandaged, broken, or bloody, nor are there any missing fingers. Her head is heavy with the almost-forgotten weight of long, thick hair. Her skin is smooth and unscarred. Her hand shoots up and presses at her temple with a careful, practiced tenderness. There is no thick scarring or the hard remaining fragments of a 9mm in her skull. She is a child. She is pure.

She is new again.

“Luca! Mama says we need to wash the clothes!” Kelile says in his ever-loud voice. The voice of a child - carefree and joyous in their discovery of the world. He bounces away from her as she pushes herself up off her mat of furs and sinks her feet - uncalloused and smooth - into the warm, grainy sand. She is back in the valley she grew up in and her breath is taken away as she revels in the beauty of it all - the tall, red mountains surrounding her, the shade of the vegetation amidst the cliffs, and the fresh aroma of herbs from her mother’s cooking. She had almost forgotten the tranquility of the place of her roots; her memories of it long buried under hordes of crimson soldiers led by a golden bull. 

Once she’s on her feet, Kelile is hanging from her arm and hopping around her like a frog, causing her to erupt into giggles as she follows him down the hill with armfuls of dirty clothing. The sun is rising high in the midday sky and for the first time in many years Luca’s heart swells with happiness. 

Once they reach the edge of the river, Luca sets the clothes down in a heap on dry rock and pulls Kelile close to rinse off his dirty fingers. He laughs all the while and they wrestle in the warm shallows for a bit. Before she can lose herself in the fun, Luca stands back up and pulls Kelile with her. 

“Enough play, Osito.” She tells him gently, using the nickname her mother had given him in honor of their father’s spirit. That word hadn’t let her lips or her heart for a long time, and saying it again almost brings tears to her eyes. She shakes them away and points to the clothes, a smile on her face. 

“Time for chores!” Kelile nods and runs to the edge of the shore, grabbing as many clothes as his small arms can carry and hefting them back over to his sister. She takes them from him one by one, scrubbing them clean in the fresh, blue water. Everything is perfect and her mind is as clear as the water splashing against her shins. She has no idea why she was so upset when she woke from her nap, nor why she kept getting the strangest feeling of deja vu with every movement she made. It's as if this had already happened... or if it weren't real. It was perfect, but, wasn't it a bit too perfect?

Luca begins to get a nervous feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach as the time goes by, the river beneath her feet growing louder and a bit rougher. It is cold against her skin, and the sky has taken on a grey tinge. She tries her best to push away the rising panic in her chest and focuses on finishing the chores, keeping a watchful eye on Kelile as he splashes away in the shallows. Why was she scared? What was she feeling?

Finally, Luca finishes up the last piece of clothing, setting the soaked clothes on the rock before rolling her pants up a bit higher on her tanned thighs. The river had gotten higher - she notices dimly, suddenly aware of the rumbling of thunder over the mountains. It must be raining in the distance. She glances over at her little brother, calling for his attention as she hoists the dripping clothes into her arms. 

“Kelile! I’m going to hang these. Don’t stray too far!” She receives a nod from him in return and she turns, hiking up the small hill to hang the clothes over the makeshift tanning racks their tribe had made for pelts. She tastes a storm in the tepid air and it stirs up her unease even more. Her eyes are clouded with worry as she looks over her valley. Something just feels wrong.

She’s hung up the last bit of cloth as she hears a scream come from below - her brother is crying her name. She perks up immediately and runs over the hill, tripping over her own feet in her haste and falling. Her palms and knees smack against the hard, rocky ground, scraping the skin into a bloody pulp that she ignores as she recognizes why her brother is screaming so loudly. She bites back the stinging tears in her eyes and the gritty, burning sensation in her ripped skin when she looks up and spots Kelile in the deep, murky parts of the now-yellow river. What would normally have been calm and smooth was now tumultuous with the coming storm, the mud and rocks picked up by the rapids and swirling fast through the valley. Kelile’s head is there for a moment and then gone before popping up again, his cries muffled by water as he chokes back the muck and attempts to empty his lungs and scream for help. 

Luca acts in a second, not even bothering to race up and find her mother - as she was always instructed to do - and begins running into the water after her brother. 

“Kelile! Swim toward me!” She cries out, her voice cracking with fear as she tries to hold herself together. She lets out a cry of anger as she almost falls again, her legs working tirelessly to push herself deep enough to where she can swim faster. She’s one of the best swimmers in her tribe, and while she’d never swam when the river was raging, she can’t exactly stop to think about what she might be getting herself into. It is her brother. Her life. She will stop at nothing to drag him from the depths. 

Kelile flails his arms uselessly as he is dragged further and further away from her. Luca eventually gives up trying to walk and dives into the water, swimming as quickly as she can and pushing the discomfort from her lungs and her limbs as she pushes herself to the limit to save her brother. She lets the current take her, pushing her quickly toward him. It’s something her father taught her before he’d passed on - and she felt a surge of energy overtake her muscles at the thought of him. She hadn’t been able to save him, but she would stop at nothing to save Kelile. She wouldn’t make another mistake like that. She wouldn’t let herself. 

In a few seconds she’s caught up to him and she reaches forward, ignoring his yells of agony as she reaches forward and grabs a handful of his braids to propel herself forward and wrap her arms around his slim waist. She lets out a cry as he hits her in his panicked flailing, not even hearing her pleads for him to calm down as he shrieks and continues sucking in lungfuls of the filthy water. He’s dragging them bother further and further downstream without even realizing it and it takes all of Luca’s strength to try to keep his head above water - let alone even think about helping herself. She holds onto him tightly, accepting the smacks and thrashes she gets against her head and stomach as she uses her strong legs to push them closer to shore. She’s sucking in just as much water through her nose as she struggles to stay above the rapids and take breaths, but the only thing on her mind is protect Kelile. Eventually, his struggling stops, and though she is relieved that her job is now the slightest bit easier, a voice in her mind is panicking at the thought that he might be dead. 

Luca hears another scream once her brother’s had died down, and she manages to see through the waves her mother running along shore after them. She kicks her tired legs with a newfound strength toward her mother and manages to catch her footing against the shelf where the shore meets the deep end. She slips and stumbles, but eventually moves far enough to where her mother can rush in after her and help her drag Kelile’s limp, cold body onto dry land. When her brother is taken from her arms, Luca drops to her hands and knees in the sand and retches over and over, her lungs burning as she empties her stomach of the water she had swallowed. Her mother is sobbing over Kelile’s body when Luca dizzyingly comes back to her senses and she crawls closer, ignoring the burn in her skin as sand and grime wedges its way into the cuts and bruises on her. 

“Kelile! Mama!” She cries, hot tears streaming down her face and a sob erupting from her when she sees her brother, crumpled and ashen under her mother’s terrified face. She’d never seen her this scared before and the sight disturbed her. 

Luca’s mother is crying as she crawls closer, her dark hair billowing protectively around Kelile’s small body as she holds him close to her chest. Luca’s eyes are wide and rimmed red, her skin rubbed raw, and her throat dry and coarse as the sand beneath her knees. She’s convinced Kelile is lost to her. Gone as quickly as the father she’d once had; snatched away by the flesh-ripping claws of a Yao Guai. She can’t handle the thought of that. As quickly as the storm, that turned the river she’d once loved into the roaring monster it was now, came her whole way of life is washed away like the valley after a flood just as quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Levántate - wake up/get up  
> Hermanita - endearing term for the word 'sister'  
> Osito - little bear


	9. Chapter 9

Sileo gasps for air as she awakens, her head pounding and her vision blurry. She spasms on the ground, her bloody fingers curling into gravel and her wrists burning as she twists and squirms blindly. She can’t get into a sitting position or pull her wrists apart and her muscles are screaming from the built-up tension in them. She has no idea where she is or why, and the only memories that are fresh in her head are the ones of days long gone; of Kelile almost dying and the weeks of pain that followed when the Legion attacked her home. 

_The Legion._ Sileo struggles against her binds with renewed vigor as recent events flash through her memory. Memories of the Cove and the truck filled with radiation. Of melting flesh and thick air burning in her lungs as she ran breathless through the desert, the bright pink of dawn creeping over the silver-lined mountains. Of her brother, her sweet brother, burning among the bodies of the men she despised in her own makeshift version of hell. There was nothing she could have done to prevent it, nothing she could have said to make him change his mind about his allegiance. 

The memory brings stinging tears to her eyes and she opens her mouth to let out an infuriated scream, only to find that she is gagged as well as bound. She bites angrily at the blood-soaked cloth in her mouth, behaving like a rabid dog as she struggles. Where is she? _Where the fuck is she?_

“So, the _proditor_ is awake.” Sileo stills abruptly as she hears a familiar voice, her head throbbing and her chest aching at the sudden onslaught of conflicting emotions. Footsteps crunch toward her in the dry desert sand and she breathes shallowly through her flared nostrils, the acrid smell of blood flooding her senses along with the slight freshness of water. She surmises she must still be near the Cove, although most likely downwind from the radiation. 

“I should just kill you right now, but I feel that Caesar would like to see you crucified.” The voice snaps her out of her thoughts and back into reality and she grits her teeth, once again faced with the conflict of human morality. 

_Severus._

He leans down and Sileo can feel her dried lips crack as he yanks the gag from her mouth, causing her to let out a grunt when she bites her tongue from the force of her head falling back to the ground. 

“You’re a mess. How pitiful.” The joy in his voice is obvious as he speaks down to her and Sileo wants to cry. She wants to cry for her baby brother, buried and lost in the black hole of this vicious man’s heart. Instead, she gasps as cold water is splashed on her face and washes away the blood and grime sticking her eyes together. She peels them apart and scans her surroundings - which proves useless; the Mojave is notorious for being extremely bland and lacking in noticeable landmarks. Especially when one is laying face down in the dirt. 

Severus kicks her onto her back and allows her to struggle into a sitting position, a look of hatred in his eyes as he stares down at her. He is Caesar’s dog through and through, Sileo thinks as she shoots him a look of pure disgust. She’s disappointed in her once-brother, a feeling that she relishes in an attempt to smother the aching despair in her heart. Hatred is good for quelling sadness and pity. This is something she knows from experience. 

She wants to ask where they are, how he survived, how anyone could have survived that radioactive mess she spilled, but she keeps her mouth shut. She won’t give him the benefit of hearing her voice - and she knows that’s what he wants. They’d grown close during their time together and she feels he would have been tempted to call her a friend. If only he knew how close they really were.

“Nothing to say? Nothing to confess?” He taunts, pulling back and letting a hand rest cockily against the machete on his hip as he stares down at her. She realizes he doesn’t actually know that she was the one who destroyed the Cove, but she supposes the fact that she had run away and stripped out of her Legion armor was evidence enough. 

Sileo is silent still, and she can tell Severus is getting impatient by the way his fingers flex over his weapon and his calves twitch ever so slightly as he fidgets. She wonders what he’s thinking, why he’s thinking. Why hasn’t he killed her yet?

“You know, I considered you a friend. _Comitem._ A comrade. Someone I could trust.” He begins to ramble, his eyes not meeting hers as he turns and faces the campfire behind him. He is a shadow to her. A silent figure with no face. She’s lost to him and he is lost to her. At least he will never have to remember what he has lost.

Sileo takes this opportunity to shift to her knees, her hands impatiently working the binds around her wrists behind her back as she tries to find a weak spot in them. Her heart pounds like an ocean of noise in her head as she yanks and pulls, biting back a hiss of pain when she feels the hot stickiness of blood against her abraded wrists. One is just about pulled free when Severus turns back around and Sileo freezes, turning her piercing gaze back up to her brother as he pulls the machete from its sheath and considers it for a while in the palm of his hand. He turns it over and over, no doubt pondering what to do to her - or perhaps just relishing the fear he believes it causes her to see the weapon. 

“Somehow,” he begins, fixing his gaze on her. His dark eyes are filled with something unreadable, something both warm and chilling all at once. “Somehow,” he says again, “I feel that I’ve known you far longer than I actually have. And that is what will make this so difficult.” He shakes his head clear and begins to move closer to her, the light of the fire glaring dangerously off the sharpened edge of his machete.

Sileo refuses to go this way, refuses to be taken down by her own family - the ones she had so desperately tried to save. Fate had a funny way of pushing her down, but she had decided long ago that she didn’t believe in words such as those. _Choice._ Though that word had also haunted her, she chooses that moment to bask herself in it and it’s thousands of outcomes. Where fate has only one in store for her, choice has as many as she wants. 

With one more desperate heave Sileo manages to wrench herself free from the rope around her wrists, breaking it apart and falling forward in the sand. She’s up in a second, staggering forward as she lunges headfirst into Severus with an enraged, inhuman screech. She loses her precious humanity in a split second, turning into a spitting, growling animal as she knocks the shocked man to the ground and begins a nasty struggle with him. 

Everything she’d tried to conserve throughout her time with the Legion is thrown aside as her raw emotions pour forth; her frustration, her anguish, her guilt. This isn’t something that Severus’ training ever could have prepared him for and he falls backward, his head a mere inch from being engulfed by flames. His machete topples into the blaze and away from his reach. Sileo takes the chance to grab at any part of him she can, her rough, untrimmed nails tearing flesh and yanking hair. She can’t even tell whose blood is whose as it splatters against them both while they roll in the dirt; sordid and pathetic.

This is desperation in all its convoluted glory.

Once the initial shock wears off, Sileo finds that Severus is much harder to pin down than she had guessed. With an upward shove of his elbow against the bottom of her chin she is sent reeling, blood flying from her mouth as she just about bites her tongue clean off. She lands hard on her back and he’s on her in a second, his hands flying to her throat as he attempts to choke the life from her while she scrabbles and jerks below him. His thumbs press hard enough against her trachea to bruise and she can’t help the pained groan that leaves her lips, her legs twitching and spit frothing at her lips. She isn’t strong enough to push him off and she’s lost the upper hand. She has no idea how she’ll get out of this one alive. A voice flashes through her mind, telling her she should just give up. Rest. Leave this world full of pain and misery. _Just let go._ She had the same feelings when she had almost drowned saving Kelile. The same voice had bubbled into her consciousness - dark and fluid - as velvety as the hissing of a snake. 

Just as her vision starts to dim, Sileo takes one last ragged breath and acts upon the only thing she knows might work at this point. She will reach into the deepest, darkest parts of Severus’ heart and tug on the one thing she knows she still has a chance to reach. There may be hope after all.

She meets his gaze, desperation and anxiety brimming like the tears reflecting the flames behind them that sit on the corners of her eyes. She parts her bruised lips, her voice faint and thick with the weight of it all crashing down on her.

“Kelile.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> proditor - traitor  
> comitem - comrade


	10. Chapter 10

Severus loosens his grip immediately and as Sileo's vision clears she sees his jaw is dropped and his eyes are wide and glazed over in pure shock. She can almost see the fractions of memories of his old life flash across his dark irises.

"How do you know that name?" He demands, his hands still around her throat, his dirt-caked fingernails pressing sharp against her skin, his grip tight but not squeezing. Sileo coughs and splutters, pushing out a hard enough wheeze as she attempts to answer for Severus to, foolishly, loosen his grip even more. She takes this opportunity to shove upward with her hips and legs to send him toppling backward. She jumps to her feet, almost collapsing again as the blood rushes to her head and her vision swims. She staggers back in time to escape his hand grabbing for her ankles and, turning, she leaps ungracefully over the campfire, skinning her knees and twisting her ankle when she lands as she just about falls back into the blaze. She stands and turns to face Severus, his features twisted in anger and illuminated by the flames.

"You were Kelile once." She says, stopping him in his tracks as he gets to his feet and almost rushes her again. He glares at her, a look of uncertainty and pain etched on his face. He doesn't know how to view her anymore - as a friend, a traitor, or someone who knows about his past. Sileo can see the muddled feelings of turmoil in his eyes and she is tense, her heart racing, her nose and eyes burning as the smoky heat of the fire billows against her. This man is no longer her brother - though it seems he remembers bits and pieces of a time when he was. He is volatile, erratic; and she now has no idea what will happen as she lets her voice out freely for the first time since she became a legionnaire and speaks these simple words: 

"I am your sister."

Severus staggers; literally physically taken aback by the blow of her confession. He looks confused, agitated. The thick red haze of 'Hail Caesar' is ripped ragged from his mind, replaced instead with the white hot agony of truth. He looks at her and she knows he believes - how couldn't he? They had the same nose, the same gentle curve in their lips, the same sharpness in their jawline. It is almost painfully obvious, and he remembers echoes of distant memories buried beneath the rubble and grime in his brainwashed head. His anger and hatred toward Sileo's betrayal is replaced instead with crazed feelings of love and adoration for Luca, for a sister once lost and now regained - but in such a dire circumstance that neither of them could possibly feel a single drop of happiness. 

Severus' mouth moves uselessly, flapping like a bird in the wind as he tries to find her name among the decrepit fragments of his childhood memories. Once so simple a name on his tongue, his lips cannot form more than the 'L' and he looks desperately to her for help. She takes the word and gives it to him as a whisper and it sounds absolutely foreign. Her heart clenches with an intense sadness despite the fiery intentions hiding within it.

"Luca. Luca..." He repeates the name like a new language, his dry lips tracing each syllable with gentle care so as not to butcher the pronunciation. He looks at her and tries to place this strong, toughened _man_ with the woman she would be had their lives not been stolen away from them. Sileo simply waits, a mix of sorrow and angry impatience scrambling her thoughts and weakening her knees, a sick anxiety brought upon by anticipation churning in her stomach and thundering in her chest. Her pulse is rapid gunfire, her thoughts moving just as fast.

She walks cautiously around the large campfire, her boots brushing softly along the sun-cracked earth as she keeps her grey eyes trained on Severus. She flicks her gaze quickly to his discarded machete, the blade laying in the flames like a forge and the leather wrappings around the handle singed black. Her fingers itch to grab it, and she is just about to make the dive when she hears Severus' voice.

"I remember our mother." He says simply, his eyes clouded and distant, his hands wringing together and tugging on each other in an attempt to discard his nervous energy. Luca freeze, her thoughts of murder disappearing and her mind softening as she remembers her mother's long black hair, beautiful green eyes, and tanned skin. Her memories of her mother are linked to the sweet smell of fresh water, crops, and the beautiful dusty, maroon canyons she used to call home. She finds herself nodding - to what, she does not know - and when she looks away from the machete and back to Severus, she can see only Kelile in those soft brown eyes.

"She loved you. _Us."_ Luca says softly, her voice ragged and dry, yet still low and soft and gentle. She shakes her head and lets out a small, hopeless laugh. "Even now, she still would."

Kelile nods, a broken smile spreading across his lips as he joins in on Luca's laughter. He lets out a dry sob and she realizes he's crying more than laughing - a harsh, tearless cry. It was barely anything but the chest sobs, but it was crying nonetheless. She stands there still, remembering a time when she would have rushed to embrace her baby brother at even the slightest hint of his pain. Now, there is a wall between them. An entire army separating them from each other, present no matter how close they may be standing.

Kelile then begins to shake his head, his laugh turning bitter and harsh as his breathing calms and his chest stops convulsing with invisible sobs.

"She would, wouldn't she?" He states, his eyes darkening sadly. Luca fidgets, unable to read his intentions, let alone her own. His laughter continues to rumble in his throat and he seems surprised with himself as he snaps his head up to look her dead on.

"And you make that point because I'm a monster now, right? She would still love me, even though I'm not worthy of it in your eyes." He suddenly spits the words at her, a new-found strength surging through him. Kelile fades from his eyes and Severus is there. A well-trained dog.

"The Legion is a monstrosity, isn't it? They killed out tribe, our family, they enslave women and weak people, they have harsh laws - but did you ever stop to think why?" He practically snarls at her, his lips curling in a instantaneous burst of pure, unfiltered rage. Sileo can't help herself as she steps back, feeling the heel of her boot hit the edge of the fire pit.

 _"She would still love you."_ Severus mocks her, his eyes looking at her, but not really. He was looking through her, trapped in his own mind, caught by the throat between two types of manipulation, fighting more with his inner selves than with her. He was waging a personal battle between love and hate - both strong and violent in their own terms.

Sileo is silent, waiting, watching, her fingers curling and uncurling at her sides as her back begins to burn painfully from the close heat of the fire. Whatever connection they had just made between each other was gone, buried beneath countless years of fear, animosity, and obedience lashed into Severus. He could not see through the red haze to know what was true, what was good, what was moral. The world was not shades of grey to this man, only black and more black.

"She wouldn't love me. Love isn't so strong. Both of our parents would despise what I've become." Severus continues. Sileo opens her mouth to object, wanting to tell him that, no, once you had a child you loved them to the end of the earth. No matter what their choices were, you never hated them, never, you only ever hated yourself for allowing it to happen. He cuts her off before she can even utter a word.

"Even _you_ despise me." He snaps, awaiting her answer, a mix between an all-knowing smirk and a pained grimace plastered on his face. He's desperate - for what she doesn't know, and she doesn't think he knows either. There is an irreversible pain within him, a hole that cannot and will never be filled. And through it all, Sileo wants to say no, wants to throw it in his face how wrong he is, that their parents would still love him unconditionally - no matter what. That she can still love him, that love was forever and never truly faded, that true love could never be forced away despite any circumstances. Her mouth moves to say all of this, but it would be a lie. Love _wouldn't_ be so strong. Love faded. Love could be torn apart and spat upon and stepped all over to the point where there would be no possibility of putting the pieces back together like they once were. Even if they could be reshaped, it wouldn't ever be the same. She couldn't look at this man and see the baby brother she had once loved in anything but his looks. She could never forgive the devil he had grown to be. Love faded, and when it was gone, there was no getting it back.

"I do." She says simply, not seeing a point in elaborating her feeling to this shell of a man. She hated him, but loved him, too. It was a hard, hating kind of love. She loved him, but she hated him.

Severus feels as if he'd won with her confession, she can see it in his expression.

"And this is why we follow Caesar. He tells the truth, Luca. There is no use for love or family in this Wasteland - only brutal honesty and power." There is a false sense of pride in his words - he's repeating a mantra that he'd that had been forced down his throat. He has no idea what his words truly mean, but he is saying them - and at this point that's all that really matters to him.

Sileo forces herself to nod along, her mind racing and flickering back and forth like the fire behind her as she tries to think of a plan. Brutal honesty and power... perhaps Caesar was right. Severus breaks the long silence abruptly, reaching for something strapped to his calf and Sileo has no time to think before she is reacting.

She lunges down, biting back a pained scream as she reaches through the flames and wraps her bandaged hand around the searing handle of the machete. Her skin blisters instantly, the iron white hot and melting through the bandages against her flesh as she pulls the machete out and flings hot coals and ash toward Severus - who is now aiming a concealed pistol at her head. He pulls the trigger just as the fiery ash hits his eyes and there is a loud crack as the bullet misfires, clipping Sileo's left ear and missing her head by barely an inch. Sileo drops to her knees and holds her bleeding ear with her free hand, her ears ringing and her entire body numb as she watches in complete silence as Severus screams and claws at his eyes. The pistol is dropped and she stretches a leg out to kick it away, her hearing slowly coming back. She can hear Severus screech - an awful sound like a dying animal echoing through the dark valley. He snaps out of it suddenly, one eye seemingly burned shut and the other caked with blood and black coal dust, the other burning bright with unbridled fury.

" _Cruciarius!_ I'll kill you!" He growls and goes to leap for his discarded gun, muttering curses and broken phrases of Latin under his breath. _"Nihil nequius est te."_

Forgetting the excruciating pain in her ear and hand, Sileo jumps forward and tackles Severus, knocking him down and struggling to climb on top of him as he kicks and lashes out blindly. He clips her wounded ear with his fist and she lets out a yell, her vision swimming from the dizzying pain. Severus takes this opportunity to pull back hard, neither of them expecting the ground to fall out from underneath them as they tumble over and down the steep, rocky hill to the river's edge. The fall almost knocks Severus unconscious, and Sileo's skin is bruised and bloody, scraped up by the sharp rocks and jagged ground. She snaps up quickly, jumping to her feet as Severus does the same. 

" _Brutal honesty!"_ She spits at him as he stumbles backward away from the reach of her blade, his boots splashing into the shallow water at the river's edge and slipping over the soft sand. She continues to swing the weapon toward him, the muscles in her sore arms burning with exertion as she begins to be blinded by rage. Her moves are heavy and nonstrategic, but Severus is having a hard time dodging them from his own wounds. Still she continues to miss him, adding to her aggravation. Her legs are unsteady and she can feel bile rising in her throat, but nonetheless she puts all the strength she can into her swings as she cuts through the thick air toward him with the machete.

“I’ll show you brutal honesty!” Sileo all but screeches, her eyes squeezing shut as she staggers forward, encouraged by the waves pushing and pulling at her feet. Her machete’s blade meets resistance this time and she refuses to open her eyes, pushing more, slowly.

When she opens them, Severus is staring at her, mouth agape, eyes growing hazy, a crimson red flower blossoming at his stomach. Sileo pushes closer, grabbing Severus’s shoulder with her free hand and locking eyes with him as she jolts her machete quick and upright into the space between his ribs. 

“You should have died in that canyon.” She spits, hot tears beginning to well in her eyes and run down her cheeks. They blur her vision.

“I don’t love you, not anymore. I loved my brother, and the weak-minded fool you’ve become is not him.” Her voice cracks and a sob escapes her throat, but she is no longer mourning. Her mind is made up; strong, clear intentions replacing what was once clouded with sorrow and guilt.

Severus tries to say something, but it is lost in a gurgle of blood that drips down his lips. Sileo pulls the machete out in one swift motion and drops it to the water, grabbing Severus with both hands and pulling him into her embrace. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine she was hugging her brother goodbye one last time, as she did unknowingly in the canyon long ago.

She keeps her eyes open instead, certain about her feelings. Her mind is made up. She will destroy the Legion and never look back. She will no longer live in the past.

“Killing you is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, Severus.” She says, feeling his ragged breathing start to slow and fade into the darkness of the night. “But it will make the rest of this so much easier.”

She lets go of him then and steps back as he falls into the water, his body beginning to drift away. There is no struggle, he’s either dead or given up. She can’t tell if he’s alive or not, but she knows one thing as she splashes, exhausted, back to the shore and clambers up the sandy hill to the fire’s light.

She will not save him this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nihil nequius est te - there's nothing that is more useless than you
> 
> cruciarius - gallows-bird! (someone to be crucified)

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a fill for a prompt on the Fallout Kink Meme!  
> http://newfalloutkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1168.html?thread=78480#cmt78480
> 
> fio, fieri, factus - be made, be done, become  
> 


End file.
